


One Heartbeat Away

by mintbrownies



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Some Humor, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2020-05-19 07:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19352779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintbrownies/pseuds/mintbrownies
Summary: To them Hongjoong’s heartbeat was a symptom, but to Yunho it was a song. He wants that song to be endless





	One Heartbeat Away

Hongjoong’s heartbeat had the rhythm of a sweet spring song, and Yunho often found himself counting the beats and the spaces between every one of then when he lays his head on the older’s chest. 

The soft hands playing with his hair accompanied by the view from the hospital room was enough to lull him to sleep on most nights, often found himself woken up by Hongjoong to head back to his bed before the nurses came to check on them on the middle of the night. But now Yunho is restless, mind overwhelmingly busy and wandering. 

“You’re thinking, overthinking, you know I don’t like it when you do that.” Hongjoong scolds softly, and Yunho sighs as he shifts to lay his head more comfortably in his lap. From this angle, he can see some crumbs on the sheets from the crackers they had. He probably should ask the nurses to change the bedding during the next round. “Yunho?” Hongjoong speaks again, wanting an answer from his bestfrind.

”You know, just the upcoming project.” Yunho finds the excuse easily, he had gotten impressively good at lying. He’s not sure it’s a good thing. “I still haven’t figured out what I should make it about.”

”For your poetry course?”

”Hmm.”

”I was talking to Mingi the other day-“ Hongjoong starts and Yunho perks up at the mention of the boy from two rooms away, “he used to attend our uni, same major even, Fine Arts, can you believe it?” Hongjoong bounces in his seated position, and Yunho’s soul nearly slips out of his body when the IV almost gets snatched off his arms.

“It’s so exciting that we have so much in common, right? Anyways, I remember him once saying that if he was stuck with a poem he’d read a story, and then try to recreate the scenes but with as fewer words as possible.”

“So, art to inspire art?” Yunho considers, head back Joong’s lap. It had become his most favorite spot to lay on lately, and the older didn’t seem to be opposed at all.

“Yes. Mingi might be dumb but he can be really enlightening at times.” He jokes, reaching for the few books he had, most of them were what he bought before he dropped out and still didn’t have the opportunity to sell them. “I don’t think I have a story here, and the connection sucks.” He looks through the books, “guess you’ll finally have an excuse to go home, huh? I’m sure your Mom is ready to kill me for hogging you to myself for the past two months.”

“Never!” Yunho pushes himself off with a scoff, “tell you what, just tell me a story yourself then.”

“Yeah?” He smiles, teasing, like he didn’t even seriously consider the option but Yunho wasn’t going to back down that easily.

“Yeah. Like the ones you used to tell me when we were younger.” Yunho grins at the memory. “remember Maddox?”

“Yunho please don’t bring him up I was ten – “ Hongjoong’s cheeks flush in embarrassment.

“But I _miss_ him!” he jumps onto the bed, the chair the nurses insist that he sits on is long forgotten and he finds enough of a space to squeeze himself into Joong’s side. “A pirate like no other, looking for his treasure across every sea and land.” He moves his hand animatedly trying to match the excitement bubbling inside him. “Don’t you remember?” He turns to him, and Hongjoong is fidgeting with the sheets covering his lap. Yunho deflates.

The silence is awkward, heavy, suffocating, and all the other things that Yunho never felt being around Hongjoong. He wanders when it had become that way, at what point exactly did Hongjoong lose himself and why didn’t Yunho notice earlier.

“There was- there was the bestfriend, too, Aiden, I think.” Yunho pushes himself to try once more, his hand over Hongjoong to hopefully bring him back from whatever it is that is causing him to curl into himself. “or was it Eren?”

“Eden.” Hongjoong says, his lips curl just a tiny bit as he lefts his head up to look at Yunho. Their eyes meet and there’s only the ghost of the stars that used to be an integrated part of Hongjoong’s eyes, but that’s a start.

“Do they ever find it? The treasure.” Yunho says, his eyes never leaving Hongjoong’s, afraid that the tiny faded stars might disappear without him taking notice.

Hongjoong says nothing for a while, and just when Yunho gets anxious again the older shifts his hand so he’s holding into the other’s. He traces circles on Yunho’s wrist with his thumb, with this position Yunho can easily feel Hongjoong’s rapid heartbeat from the vein under his skin, where red and blue are permanent enough because of the countless needles that had to be injected into him on the daily. Still, the motion was soothing, calming, enough of an evidence to know that Hongjoong is still with him.

“They did.” Hongjoong says quietly, “but sometimes finding your treasure isn’t the happy ending you’re looking for.”

*

Yunho tried not to think too much about how much everything sucks right now, because to be frank, he has no right to be. He’s not the one that has to have drugs running through his system through every hour of the day, he’s not the person that can barely walk for several minutes without a wheelchair, and he’s not the one that got his education and future pulled away from him because of a diagnosis.

That’s all it took: one piece of paper, signed by a barely readable hand writing, and Hongjoong’s entire life took a pause (some call it a stop, but Yunho knows better, with Joong, he has to be the one to call it so).

They tried to make it work at first, of course. Hongjoong wasn’t the type of guy to walk away from college at the slightest inconvenience, and it wasn’t like Yunho would allow him to anyways. “I’d literally punch you in the face if you walk out of here now, hyung or not.” Yunho had choked on a sob, clenching to the medical dismiss in one hand and pointing an accusing finger at Joong with the other as they sat down at the older’s dorm room.

They had been laying on bed before the e-mail had arrived, Yunho tracing patterns on Hongjoong’s arm as he listened to his heart. Yunho was a cuddly person, and so he often listened to the heartbeats of many people, some had more interesting rhythm than others, but Joong was different, echoey and fast as if it was desperate to reach someone far away. It remined him of the stories that Joong had often told Yunho during their sleepovers when his mother was on a shift and he had to stay the night, of adventures driven by pure desire and want, it’s like the souls from all these stories had lived inside of him even after all these years.

Hongjoong’s heartbeat had always been different, but as the e-mail finally arrived despite Yunho’s hope that they will be informed of a diagnostical mistake, the paper only confirmed the hard-hitting reality.

Despite his heart problem, Hongjoong manages to attend a full semester, and then Yunho brings him the notes of the classes when he had to be hospitalized with the occasional attendance of the important exams that can’t be taken online. Eventually though, it seemed like the stress was working against Hongjoong and it was better to drop out. “It’s fine, you did well, you’ll do even better once you’re out.” Yunho says as cheerfully as he can manage, because that was Yunho, the cheerful one out of the two as their friends often said.

But, when Hongjoong nods his smile doesn’t reach his eyes, and although he thought it was only him imagining it back then, Yunho supposes this was the moment when the stars in his eyes started to fade.

*

Group therapy sessions generally weren’t Hongjoong’s favorite, and Yunho isn’t surprised by the huffs he lets out almost every ten minutes. Ever since they were kids, when their two families would meet to celebrate a birthday or a graduation, Hongjoong was always at the corner of the room keeping to himself after the initial ten minutes of polite interactions for the sake of his parents, and Yunho would keep an eye out for him, more out curiosity back then. It was fascinating how someone like Hongjoong didn’t feel comfortable around people for too long. 

Still, it looks like not much had changed since then.

Yunho pats his thigh in sympathy when the therapist asks them to talk about their day. But, Joong is still tense under Yunho’s touch and he knows that this isn’t just a normal discomfort at being forced to socialize. He really didn’t want to be here. 

He gulps, and hurriedly looks up and he’s a bit relieved when he locates San monitoring the session from the door. 

“Can we take him back to his room? He’s not feeling well.” Yunho whispers once he had reached the resident nurse, whose eyes widen in concern, peeking at the said patient “what’s the problem?”

”I don’t think he’s really feeling it today.” Yunho shakes his head. Joong is scratching at the arms of his chair roughly enough to leave white trails behind, and then San nods. “You go, I’ll talk to Mr. Young and then I’m taking him to his room, I think he’ll be calmer if he knew you were waiting for him there.” The nurse pats his arms and nudges him out of the room. 

As he walks back Yunho is nervous, he had never seen Hongjoong get this irritated before. He generally was very good at carrying himself and putting up with conversations, so while he hated group therapy this was the first time since his hospitalization that they had felt the need to get him out of the session.

He tries to keep himself busy as he waits, the connection is shit at this part of the hospital so he only stares at the clock above Joong’s bed as he tidied the room a bit, cleaning up his scattered belongings that San always scolded him for whenever he or the other nurses came to check on Joong’s vitals.

After an hour Yunho sprints to the hall at the sound of a wheelchair approaching the room, “is he okay?” he asks as he’s met an unconscious Hongjoong, and San shushes him as he pulls him carefully aside while the other nurse transfers Hongjoong to his bed.

“He’ll be okay, but he wasn’t feeling the best when took him out.”

“What do you mean?”  Yunho walks closer.

“He- um,” San looks around, licking his lips as if he’s contemplating the best way to tell Yunho something medical in common people language, Yunho had gotten used to it, it just means that he’ll probably have to google whatever the nurse says after he leaves. “you know how stress isn’t good for a sick heart? Hongjoong’s heart is sick, so when he got nervous, that stress got amplified and it kind of resulted in a mock-panic attack.” Yunho’s body freezes.

“But it didn’t look like it.”

“Yes, it’s all internal.” San nods emphatically, “it’s the first time, so it just means that we have to be more careful with things like these from now on.” He hesitates for a moment then, "so you know, you two just take it easy for now." He motions his hands, eyes suggestive. Yunho chokes on air.

"Ah- we, we're not-"

"It's fine, you aren't be the only ones anyways." San shrugs, heading out the department and leaving Yunho a giant blushing mess. 

What the hell. 

*

For several nights it seemed like whenever Yunho falls asleep it’s his own rapid heartbeat that jolts him awake, shaking every cell in his body and filling him up until he’s nothing but his dark worries.

He tries to calm himself as he looks attentively at Hongjoong’s body, paying his attention to the way his chest raises and falls as he lays on his bed, and at the nights when that’s not enough to calm him down, he carefully places a hand just slightly above Hongjoong’s mouth and nose, feeling his breathing brush against his skin, and then maybe, he can get back to sleep after making sure that his favorite heartbeat to listen to is still playing its melody.

He shares these feelings with Jongho once, after the nurses had came to take Hongjoong and Mingi for a joint OT and PT session.

He was hesitant about sharing these thoughts at first, Jongho was in no way in a better place than him, of Yunho can barely manage his worries over his childhood friend then he supposes it can’t be easy for Jongho having to watch his fiancé battle with his illness as much as Hongjoong is.

Still, as they both sit in the cafeteria. Jongho’s eye bags and hunched back matching Yunho’s, the older supposes this could be good for both of them. Hongjoong’s doctor once said something about not bottling up your feelings, that it could destruct you from the inside without you noticing, and she seems to be right as far as he can tell.

“How’s Mingi doing?” Yunho passes a cup of coffee and a sandwich to the younger.

“He’s – he’s okay.” Jongho says after a sip, hands folding at the edge of the paper cup, “I mean, it’s the same, the illness, but he’s okay.” he turns to Yunho then, a small smile on his face, “he mentioned the wedding yesterday.”

“Yeah?” Yunho smiles at that, and Jongho nods before turning back to the coffee in his hands, the edges starting to tear as he keeps fidgeting with them.

“Kept talking about it for the entire night, he was so excited.” He chuckles fondly then. “Even this morning, I think he said that he wanted us to decorate the place with lilies.”

“lilies are pretty – “

“I’m allergic to flowers.” Jongho cuts him, eyes wide as if he suddenly realized that fact about himself. “That floorwipe, I’m going to divorce the shit out of him once we’re married.”  He finishes the rest of his hot, black, bitter coffee in one go, Yunho is slightly terrified.

“So, what is it?” Jongho throws his empty cup into the trashcan and tears his sandwich open. Eating, that seemed like a good idea, maybe Yunho should do that more often instead of only indulging on caffeine as a mean of survival.

“Huh?”

“You look bothered, worried.” Jongho takes a big bite, and motion for him to talk.

“uh-  I actually wanted to share something with you, but I’m not sure it’d be a good thing to do so anymore.” Yunho awkwardly stood up. He didn’t feel like ruining the younger’s mood.

“You sure?” Jongho asks in concern.

“Yeah.” Yunho nods, “yeah I’m sure.”

*

Yunho wasn’t sure how to do any better than he already is.

He was doing the best he could as a caregiver, he helped the whenever they came to change the bedding and clean Hongjoong, he was more careful about what he and the other ate and he tried his best to make sure the older wasn’t stressed so much. Yet, Hongjoong keeps getting worse with every passing day and he feels lost, but mostly helpless and alone. He knows it’s selfish of him to feel that and so he pushes those thoughts away and focuses on Joong, on the way his heart is still beating, and on how he can fill the spaces of silence between the beats of it with a hum.

But Yunho’s worry grows, and so dropped out, couldn’t keep up with both uni, his work, and staying with Hongjoong all at the same time, but he doesn’t tell the older that of course. He’ll only blame himself, and stress his heart more than it is already stressed.

It was weird, how even the mundane moment spent with Hongjoong seemed to hold more weight. Even now, Yunho helping him put on a suit as they head to Mingi’s room, Jongho had called them about ten times so they won’t miss the humble celebration but Yunho’s didn’t answer, too occupied in his thoughts and, well, in Hongjoong.

He had always been beautiful, it was a fact that Yunho had always knew. Skies were blue, water was wet, and Hongjoong is beautiful.

Even now, tubes coming in and out of his skinny, pale body, eyes barely have any glistening galaxies left in them, he still manages to take Yunho’s breath away.

There’s so much he wants to say, so much he wants to do, but not enough time. He knows.

“You okay?” Hongjoong’s hand pats his cheek, soft and warm, his pulse against Yunho’s skin reminding him of nights he spent listing to his heartbeat, when Yunho was unaware and foolishly waxed poems about the same thing that is now taking Hongjoong away from him.

Yunho crumbles. Weak and pathetic and helpless.

“Shush. We have a wedding to attend to.” Delicate fingers run through his hair, and Yunho dives further into the embrace despite himself. He should be the strong one, he can’t be scared, he has no right to. He’s not the one in pain. But-

“It hurts.” He chokes out, fists desperately clinging to the ugly hospital cloth surrounding Hongjoong, and face sinking deeper and deeper into his chest.

To them Hongjoong’s heartbeat was a symptom, but to Yunho it was a song. And He wants that song to be endless.


End file.
